Well to be fair friend it was you who went boasting ’bout the best of your lovers and the turkey you’re roasting.

“And roast them we will!”

But with roasting aside, as I’d rather forgive than see old lovers fried. For love (real love) ’tis less like a roast than to boast.

“A boast?” Asked one as they stifled a chuckle, “You’re full of beans sir and best leave on the double.”

Well why not be a boast if this Love so desires, don’t we boast of our weakness so to lift others higher. And if men make themselves fools so that you do their thinking, why cause it a fuss that clods slave to god’s bidding. Or I’ll boast as a slacker while you boast of your slaving, and who’d think it wrong with the gains you’d be making.

“So love’s gentle?”

Most gentle.

“Love is kind?”

Most divine.

“But you think I’m missing out on account of my pride?”

‘Tisn’t so strange see it makes perfect sense, though there’s only so much our eyes see from the fence.

“In that case do tell, you that thinks he’s all-knowing, this love that you speak of, how low could it go?”

As low as we two if to save us Love’s goal.

“Perhaps than this love it can do anything.”

Heaven forbid, it’s love’s limit Love brings.

“Does love lie?”

Love cannot.

“Does love boast?”

More than most.

“And oh where’s love’s name in the heat of your boasting. Or is Love so shy as to shrink from your toasting.”

Why name you a name when His name you know best. You make Love’s name a cursing and say it in jest, making less of the person who loves you the best.

“Oh come now, you know I’ve no time for this game, what with presents to post and guests who’ve came. There’re birds which need plucking, puddings alight, and no end to the games that we’ve got in our sight.”

And here I thought playing dumb part of the game, we make merry come Christmas yet ignore why it’s came.

Then allow me my merriment, since I think it the best, sharing Christmas by starlight with wise men abreast. So you see maybe Christmas it’s more than a song, something greater than a few of us getting along.

“Oh is that so? With wise men abreast to keep lists of my doings and remind me what’s best. Having heard it you’ve arrived at the end of your preaching, with no mystery left to the things you’ve been teaching. Holy hymns, children choirs and something divine, these are what you’re after as you top up my wine.”

And you not being a mystic this is all quite oppressive, so you pursue other things to the point of obsessive. More wine?

“More wine from you I’d soon refuse, as it’s blood in disguise and tainted with lies.”

How about more mince pie?

“Or a thumb to the eye. Oh would you look how time flies.”

And as time flies fly we too, shut the door on me now for tonight we’re through. Still, you did know what I wanted?

“It I’ve heard before, though you mask much in play, be it by Santa, Rudolf or some other gent’s sleigh. While I taunted your treasures, as I’d do everyday. . .”

Whilst I ride royal coattails making nary a fuss, as you slander His love making it as the dust. Still, you won’t ask I forgive you all of your cursing, nor would you even think to ’til for love you’re thirsting.

“So, by King Love’s command yourself you’ve made a fool. Breathing fire, ice and hail long ere you’re through. All to take me to places I can’t go alone. . .”

10 thoughts on “King Love’s Christmas”

does it make you feel good to pretend that no one else feels love? Unfortunately for you, humans of many religions and none at all love and are loved. You aren’t special, and your need to pretend that anyone who doesn’t agree with you are unhappy, lonely, angry, etc is pitiful. It does support the idea that a happy content non-Christian is a conservative Christian’s greatest fear.

All of it, but we can start with this “And so I continue a two year tradition, to write rhymes to my friends about the Love they’ve been missing.”

oh and this “Whilst I ride royal coattails making nary a fuss, as you slander His love making it as the dust. Still, you won’t ask I forgive you all of your cursing, nor would you even think to ’til for love you’re thirsting.”

Now, since you seem to be adamant to say you are not saying other people can’t feel love, what is the meaning of your poem about, hmmm, oh yes… the love we’ve been missing?

If you feel bothered by the earlier portions of the poem, that’s a personification of love my friend. The caps are a clarifier there, like names of people and place names, think of the classic “God is love” verse in the Bible, or think John 1, in the beginning was the Word. So I’m not trying to say the rest of the world can’t love in that portion. I mean, me saying those aren’t my thoughts should be enough, but you didn’t want to accept my word on it.

Even without the qualifiers you could have taken it as a reading which said between these two characters one was missing out on love, like an Ebenezer Scrooge type character. None of those quotes imply universality. It wouldn’t be universal even if you missed out on the personification of love as “Love” the person. Think about this clarifier: “You make Love’s name a cursing and say it in jest, making less of THE PERSON who loves you the best.” So Love is a person in this poem, I hope this is helpful.

Hopefully another point, just as one character tells the other that their loves were bad, they were selfish, that shows that BOTH characters can and do love. Saying in my poem that someone’s love was rotten or selfish or anything else, that would mean they can love, you can’t have tainted love without it being some variety of love.

As for the portion which says that one character won’t ask the other for forgiveness until he’s “thirsting” for love, again that doesn’t mean that he isn’t loving or can’t love, it’s not universal or even singular. You can love and not be thirsting for love, it’s a matter of degrees here, not about having it at all.

If I drift off before you reply God bless you, I hope you’ve had a lovely Christmas, fingers crossed some of this was helpful to you.

Yes, I know that your poem is about your god being “love”. This contains the assumption that only Christians then have love. Happily, your god isn’t love and no one needs it to have love. and yes, I could have assumed it was a singular character being spoken too. That doesn’t work when you say this, osc. “to write rhymes to my friends about the Love they’ve been missing.” and when you tag your post with the term atheism. if you weren’t meaning all atheists, why use that term?

I’ve also looked at your past posts. Hmmm, for someone who makes the claims you have, that you supposedly aren’t intending to mean all non-christians, we have nonsense like this from you “What do Atheists, Muslims and try-hard Christians have in common? They’re all hatin’ on Christmas! Who’s gonna defend the humble holiday?”

and someone’s love being “rotten”? that’s quite arrogant that you think you can say someone’s love is wrong in some manner. Again, osc, you seem to think you have the only “right” kind of love. How very Christian of you.

and hmmm, God bless me? How so? What am I lacking that this god can provide? hmmm, it is love?

If you knew that there was this distinction going on in the use of Love as a proper noun and love as simply the feeling and ability to act lovingly in the poem then why would you quote the first portion of my poem to back up your accusation? It seems as if you couldn’t identify the use of a noun despite the context saying that that’s how the word Love is being used. Remember you insisted that I was arguing for loveless Hindus, Buddhists, atheists, everybody really. In your earlier criticism you were offended because you believed I was writing that nobody felt love but myself, for which you enlisted two quotations in an attempt to prove your point. The problem is that neither quotation reads how you would like it to read. Saying “Y does not have Love” isn’t the same thing as saying “Y cannot feel love.”

Well, it contains the assumption that only Christians have God, Jesus. Only who we might describe as a born again Christian has “Love” as in the person of Christ, that’s not an uncommon belief that Christians hold. I don’t know anyone who isn’t a Christian who would be annoyed or want a piece of that action, and if they do they’re welcome to go to a nearby church or pick up a Bible and read about Jesus.

About the point where you wrote you couldn’t assume the claims in the poem were related to a single character to character situation because of my opening line, that’s slightly confused my friend. Hopefully this is gonna help you.

The opener explained writing rhymes to my friends about the Love they’ve been missing, that’s a preface to the content of the poem, like an outside perspective, which again is using love as a noun (meaning Love). So the preface is written as a nod to another poem shared with readers the previous year roundabout Christmas time. You’ve got to parse the material carefully so you’ll see the gear shift from what’s being written about actions in the storytelling and the audience, since in my earlier message I’m not insisting the poem isn’t shared with a wider audience, but rather that in the character exchange (which clearly takes place after the preface) there’s material which explicitly teaches that others can feel love. How you’ve read the material after the preface is clearly confused because you’ve enlisted the use of Love as a noun in the preface to argue that the author, namely me, is against the idea of others feeling love.

Still none of those lines disqualify “love” from anybody, rather they make distinctions between Christians indwelt by Christ and people who aren’t. So you could read the poem as everybody having “love” in some sense, or as only one character lacking love in both senses, while the preface (which is clearly for another audience) could contain Love as being attached or unattached to only certain people. The preface doesn’t have to touch upon the content of the poem or of the characters, for which you could’ve read as I’ve written earlier, an overview style preface shouldn’t creep into the content of the characters of the poem.

Some of the readers of the preface would be born again and not lacking Christ, whereas others could be of any variety of person. Still none of those people would be without love, rather the poem is partly for my friends who’re yet lacking “Love” as personified. More than one quotation in my poem explains how many people without Love are capable of loving, for which you’re drifting from one outrage to another. Your first objection is a flop, if you’d asked me my views or trusted in my initial response you could’ve saved us both a lot of time.

It’s tagged with atheism because one of the characters in the poem is an atheist.

So you’re attempting to interpret a stand-alone poem based upon other things you’ve read on a blog that’s been running for over four years? Really even drawing from another blog article written a week ago could be bad enough depending on the content of the other blog post, nevertheless hopefully the four year point drives home how most people would feel reading your new argument. You’ve got to draw from the immediate context. Drawing other points from other articles makes you appear desperate. I don’t know how else to reply to something like that without being playful and teasing you, I’m sorry. 🙂

It’s arrogant of me to write about fictitious characters having rotten love for one another? Again this kind of writing, especially shared with my unbelieving friends, is an act of love to me. So is it not arrogant of you to insist my love is “wrong” in some manner? Just turn the claim upon itself. The big difference is I’m writing fiction, whereas you seem to be doing less than stellar things to real life people.

How very Christian of me? Well, to be honest without being rude I hope, I don’t normally consider atheists like yourself to be an authority of how to define a Christian. I teach on the Bible and have a decent grasp of many different communities which are considered under the umbrella of Christian practice. I know my church history pretty well. You on the other hand try to interpret lone poems by drawing on anything I’ve written in the history of forever, so it’s not really up to you to decide what’s Christian on anybody else’s behalf.

Not that you’re deciding for me, but you’re sending me these things, for which I’m assuming you think I should have this information. Still you’ve just been volunteering things which nobody is asking for, bless your cotton socks.

God bless you, how so? On a personal level now, God could bless you and I with many things, it’s a common expression and I didn’t have anything in particular in mind. Wishing you well and happy new year and merry Christmas is just something that people do, it’s kind and normally cheers people up.

Obviously it’s not going to cheer everyone up, I mean you’ve got those content non-Christians who are just so happy and full of joy and they’re just at the absolute limit of fun. How could they possibly have any more fun than they’re having right now misreading poems and scrambling for a comeback, any comeback. You just sound so happy. . . 0;)

Because, my dear, it is pertinent. You claim that anyone who doesn’t agree with can’t have love or “Love” because you do your darndest to try to conflate love and your god, which fails at love even if we just go with what the “love is…” verses say. But nice try, OSC. It is kind of fun to watch you backpedal when called on your silliness. And wonderful that now you are trying to insist that you are now supposedly only saying people can’t have love. Funny how that’s wrong too. Everyone can have and feel love, not just people who agree with you.

Yep, I know you assume that only Christians have god or “Love” as you want to falsely call it. And again, you fail with the claim that your god is “love”. I wonder, how does murdering all non-christians, and then allowing satan to corrupt the Christians left work with the idea of “love” or “Love”, unless you go with anything god does is “love”, which bastardizes the word, yet one more circular argument offered by a Christian along the lines of “god is good is god is good….”. All we have is OSC having a might equals right morality.

As for who you do and don’t know, an appeal to your personal ignorance doesn’t help your claims.

But thanks for admitting that I’m right about your claims that no one but you knows “love” or “Love”. And no, I don’t have to “parse” anything. It’s great to see you now insisting that you didn’t mean what you wrote, and now “interpretation” is magically in play. Yep, you do make a great attempt to make distinctions between Christians and non-Christians, exactly what I said. And hilarious that you don’t want you preface of your own poem to be considered when reading the poem. That’s rather amazing, and shows you have no idea what a preface is for, or that now you don’t like what it shows you are claiming. And I know not to trust you at all, OSC, for you run from one excuse to another. I know one of the characters in the poem is an atheist, and that you try you best to make believe that this character can’t know love or Love. But let’s cut to the point here: is your God love? And is your god Love, a meaningless word simply given to a magical being? If it is not “love”, then why use the term Love to name it?

I do love how you are now indignant that I dare read something you wrote in context. Oh my, that’s lovely for a Christian. And it’s great to see you try to claim that your false claims are somehow “playful and teasing”. Does that feel better to claim just like now claiming that I should read the preface with the poem? You know, the “immediate context”? 😊

Many Christians claim that they are being “loving” when lying to others. Most curious. And funny how you have yet to show any love at all, or Love. You also don’t appear to be writing “fiction” which isn’t a poem clearly intended to be a metaphor/allegory. But if you want to keep calling it fiction, sure. We then both known the claims in it are not true by definition. No “Love” at all and the characterization of your other characters aren’t accurate either.

And what are these less than stellar things you want to accuse me of, OSC?

Well, since I was a Christian and know other Christians who aren’t like you, so I’m a pretty good authority on Christians and how to define them. I do know that they don’t agree on much and often hate each other, insisting that anyone who doesn’t agree with their sect. I’ve read the bible as a believer and as not, and have plenty of exposure to various sects. I know church history very well, and I look at your poem in context, a context you evidently don’t like anyone looking into. It seems that Christians claim that their bible should be taken in context literally drawing on all of it, so again, we seem to have a Christian who wants to claim that his version is the only right one.

And nice to know that willful ignorance is your forte, OSC. And funny how your god blesses no one at all. Note one prayer answered. And of course you had nothing in mind, since you know it doesn’t happen. It’s a thoughtless thing that Christians say to feel like they’ve done something.

And here we go again, with a Christian who need to imagine that no one have Love or love, or fun except him. And sorry dear, more false claims about “misreading” and “scrambling” don’t exactly reflect well on your claims about how loving you are. Wishful thinking doesn’t work well 😊